One of the most common phrases in high performance is, “Focus on the process.” Coaches say it. Sport psychologists teach it. Authors write it. Business leaders encourage it. The problem? Almost everyone says it. Very few people truly understand what it looks like. This year’s Wimbledon may have provided one of the best examples.\

For more than five decades, New York Knicks fans waited. Fifty-three years had passed since the franchise last raised the Larry O’Brien Trophy. Generations of fans had come and gone. Great players had worn the uniform. Hope had been rekindled and dashed countless times. Then, in 2026, led by Finals MVP Jalen Brunson, the Knicks finally brought a championship back to New York. What made the accomplishment even more remarkable was the man at the center of it.

This past weekend, the drama of the 2025 U.S. Open at Oakmont Country Club was more than just high-level golf, it was a real-time study in how to respond when conditions get brutally tough. Oakmont, notorious for its slick greens, punishing rough, and unrelenting pressure, was a reminder that champions aren’t made when things are easy. They rise through adversity.

The 2025 Roland Garros Men’s Championship was one for the ages. A showdown between World #1 Jannik Sinner and #2 Carlos Alcaraz delivered one of the most thrilling Grand Slam finals in history—a five-hour-and-29-minute marathon of grit, brilliance, and emotional intensity. But beyond the scoreline, what truly stood out were the championship habits that both men displayed, habits that transcend the clay courts of Paris and apply just as much to the boardrooms and meeting tables of financial advisors.

How many times have you sat through a workshop, jotted down pages of notes of best practices, walked out the door inspired, only to get back to work, get distracted, and fall right back into your own patterns of doing business? To turn best practices into sustainable habits, you must, like Tiger Woods, execute while others procrastinate.

With the PGA Tour FedEx Cup Championship wrapping up this September, it’s timely to reflect upon what financial professionals can learn from champions who dominated the PGA Tour this past year. For years, the golf community asserted that putting was what mattered most when it came to golf results. Well today on the PGA Tour, this long-held belief could not be further from the truth…